Home

Publications

Research

Students

Bio

Teaching

sanjeevabalasuriya@yahoo.com

Profile
Sanjeeva Balasuriya Teaching Bitmoji
Sanjeeva has extensive undergraduate and postgraduate teaching experience, acquired through teaching a variety of courses with different expectations, at top liberal arts colleges in the US as well as at research universities. These courses run the gamut from large lectures to hundreds of students to small courses with two students, from examination-driven to project-driven, from chalk-and-talk to activity-based student-centred, from purely theoretical to very applied, from highly reliant on technology to strongly reliant on intuition, from mathematics for engineering to mathematics for the humanities. He has been at the forefront of many "hot" ideas in teaching: activity- and discovery-based learning, peer assessment, open-book and take-home examinations, student-run classes, flipping classrooms in various ways, project-driven courses, technology-enabled peer-instruction, etc, and has also developed course- and instructor-evaluation tools.

Over the past 25+ years, Sanjeeva has developed curricula at the course level for many courses. In addition, he has coordinated programs (at the degree level) at an international joint college, and overseen teaching activities as a Director (a.k.a. Associate Dean) of Learning and Teaching. In this latter role, he has managed both the teaching (evaluating and reporting on teaching and courses, awarding high-performing teachers, managing and formulating policies) and the learning (providing support to under-performing students) sides.

Courses taught
A rough estimate of the times each course has been taught are provided in parentheses.

For non-majors

  • Mathematics for the liberal arts (Oberlin+Connecticut, 4 times)
  • Environmental modeling [cross-listed with Environmental Studies] (Connecticut, 3)
  • Calculus with precalculus (Connecticut, 1)

Standard courses

  • Single and multivariable calculus (Oberlin+Connecticut+Peradeniya+Adelaide, 30)
  • Ordinary and partial differential equations (Oberlin+Connecticut+Adelaide+Brown, 8)
  • Real analysis (Connecticut, 5)
  • Linear algebra (Adelaide, 1)
  • Complex analysis (Adelaide, 5)
  • Advanced regression techniques (Connecticut, 1)

Honours/Masters courses

  • Nonlinear dynamics (Sydney+Adelaide, 7)
  • Fluid mechanics (Peradeniya, 1)

Engineering-supporting large courses

  • Engineering mathematics (Adelaide+Peradeniya, 5)
  • Numerical analysis (Peradeniya, 3)
  • Classical mechanics (Peradeniya, 1)
  • Partial differential equations (Sydney, 4)

Specialized courses

  • Fluid mechanics (Sydney+Peradeniya, 3)
  • Dynamical systems (Connecticut, 1)
  • Vibrations and waves (Sydney, 2)
  • Lebesgue integration (Connecticut+Oberlin, 2)
  • Electromagnetic theory (Peradeniya, 1)
  • Fourier transforms and applications (Adelaide, 3)
  • Senior seminar (Connecticut, 2)
  • Extra-ordinary differential equations (Adelaide, 1)


Curriculum development (selected)
  • Environmental Modeling (Connecticut College) was developed as a cross-listed course between Mathematics and Environmental Studies. This included modeling of biological systems (as pertaining to predation, competition, invasive species and endangered species), as well as climate, weather and pollutant spreading modeling (incorporating the IPCC reports).
  • Fourier Transforms and Applications (University of Adelaide) was developed for students in the "Advanced" stream of mathematics, such that all material was presented through discovery-based learning. Carefully guided worksheets were often used with students working in groups (different groups each time), in addition to more open-ended questions and assignments, and computational exercises. [syllabus]
  • Calculus with Precalculus (Connecticut College) was developed to take students who had not had a precalculus course all the way to differential and integral calculus in just one semester. No concepts were presented without providing intuitive justifications. To achieve this, a careful development of material not available in any one textbook was necessary; instructor-developed material was provided in addition to judicious choices from two different textbooks, with thoughtful instructions to help students to use this material as references in a nonconfusing way. [syllabus]
  • An extensive collection of lecture materials, plus a full textbook, was written for Mathematics IB: Calculus (University of Adelaide), where the emphasis was on (i) presenting material in an active-learning fashion whenever possible, despite the 600 students in the course, and (ii) having material which could be transferred to any other lecturer in subsequent years. The lecture slides had embedded activities within them, which utilized on-time polling (prior to the presence of tools such as Mentimeter) as well as time during which students would tackle (in groups and singly) certain tasks which led to the concepts. [sample lecture slides]
  • The joint curriculum development of Math 240: Introduction to Mathematical Modelling (Oberlin College, 2001), a course amalgamating modelling aspects from differential equations, optimization and statistics, was undertaken via a National Science Foundation Award for the Integration of Research and Education grant.
  • As Program-Coordinator for mathematics for Haide College, a joint initiative between Ocean University of China and the University of Adelaide based in Shandong (China), oversight of the entire mathematics degree program, its curriculum, and its articulation pathways (2020-).
  • Extra-Ordinary Differential Equations (University of Adelaide, 2023) was developed as a part of the Advanced Mathematics Perspectives capstone course to allow students to individualize projects in any of the traditionally non-taught areas of stochastic, delay or fractional differential equations, with emphasis on theory, application or computation based on each student's personal interests. Allowing for discovery-based independent learning, this course was designed to empower generic research capabilities in a changing world, as a counterpoint to the highly-directed group projects usually offered in this course.
  • A methodology developed by Sanjeeva for incorporating a flipped model (before the term "flipped" was coined) for a theoretical mathematics course, Real Analysis (Connecticut College) is detailed in a teaching-related publication:
    Reacting to Analysis MAA Focus (Newsmagazine of the Mathematical Association of America) 28, 8-9 (2008).


Student evaluations (selected)
In all student evaluations which discernibly asked for an overall score for the instructor, the median score awarded by students to Sanjeeva has always been the maximum available (e.g., if the students had to chose from the range 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 for an overall ranking for the instructor, at least half the students would chose 5, the maximum allowable).
  • MATHS2202: Engineering Mathematics 1 (Adelaide)
  • MATHS2101: Multivariable and Complex Calculus (Adelaide)
    This is a course in the covid-era. In-class lectures were revamped completely to provide recordings, weekly tasks (online tutorials and quizzes) were developed, assignments were graded online and most importantly, all examinations were conducted online. In a significant move in an environment in which even open-book examinations had not been held pre-covid, the online examinations were made open-internet, allowing students to use any inanimate resources (books, websites, etc). While this was precipitated by covid restrictions, this was taken as an opportunity to pose quite different types of questions with less convergent solutions and which appealed to higher levels in the Bloom taxonomy. Assignments were adjusted similarly to help students adapt to thinking deeper, while preparing for the style of the examinations.
  • MAT105: Introduction to Mathematical Thought (Connecticut)
    This course is designed for students who do not necessarily have a strong interest in mathematics but are required to take a mathematics course as a general education requirement. Its clientele mostly consisted of humanities, arts, or social science majors.
  • MAT205/ES205: Environmental Modeling (Connecticut)
    These evaluations reflect the related issues - which had been discussed within both Mathematics and Environmental Studies - as to whether Calculus I would need to be a prerequisite or not, and whether MAT205 would qualify for satisfying the general education requirement in mathematics. In view of this feedback, Calculus I would need to be specified as a firm prerequisite for this course to be most effective.
  • MATH2005: Fourier Series and Differential Equations (Sydney)
  • MATH2065: Introduction to Partial Differential Equations (Sydney)
  • Applied Mathematics Honors Topic: Nonlinear Dynamics ( Sydney)
    (Equivalent to US Masters course)
  • Collective Evaluation for first year of teaching (Oberlin)
  • Evaluation Form (Peradeniya, Sydney)
    Since there was no teaching evaluation policy at either Univ. Sydney or Univ. Peradeniya while Sanjeeva was there, this evaluation form was designed to voluntarily obtain both summative and formative feedback on teaching and courses. Several colleagues at Sydney subsequently adopted this form designed by Sanjeeva for their own courses.


Pedagogical talks/workshops conducted (selected)
  • "Motivating topics in the Mathematics International Baccalaureate Curriculum,'' United World College, Dilijan, Armenia (2023).
  • "On motivation," Annual Teaching Conference, Mathematical Association of South Australia, Glenunga International High School, Adelaide, Australia (2015).
  • "Chaotic horseshoes," MathCats Undergraduate Seminar, University of Arizona, USA (2012).
  • "Informal chaos," Talented Students Day, organised by the Mathematical Association of New South Wales, University of Sydney, Australia (2003).
  • "Course units-a personal perspective," Workshop on Learning Assessment, Postgraduate Institute of Science, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (1999).
  • "Motivation in mathematics," International Workshop on Science Education, Postgraduate Institute of Science, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (1999).
  • "Active learning in engineering," Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (1998, 1999).
  • "Computers in science," School Science Programme, Institute of Fundamental Studies, Sri Lanka (1997).